Random Thoughts

Own Your Dream

2012-01-31T15:32:00.001+02:00

I live in an area that is called a town house complex (I don’tknow why its called that); it is a number of houses in the same yard and with acommon entrance. We have a person who assists us with ensuring that the commonareas are clean. This gentleman (Anthony) also takes our rubbish bins the nightbefore they are collected weekly by the municipality trucks. During the latterpart of December Anthony was on leave and yours truly was also on leave. I forgotto take out the bin for collection the night before. When I woke up, many many hoursafter old people and birds had woken up, I learnt to my surprise that themunicipality truck had just finished collecting the contents of the bins at mycomplex. I decided to try and catch up with the truck.

In my quest, I met a few people:

The first person that I encountered suggested that I simplytake part of the rubbish that could fit in a refuse bag and chase the truckwith my car. This would only take care of 10% to 15% of the contents of therubbish bin. I did not quite like this idea and thought I wanted to see if Icould chase the truck and empty the whole bin, this meant chasing the truck onfoot.

The second person I encountered was the security guard at themain gate. He read the situation and what I was trying to accomplish and couldnot help but simply shake his head with a facial expression that says: what youare trying to do will not happen today and will not happen on any other day ofthe week. I read the facial expression and my faith started to sap. There waslittle time to entertain this sapping of faith so I kind of dismissed him.

The third person had a great heart but was disappointed by thebody that was carrying his great heart. The most useful thing he told me wasthat the refuse truck makes a stop at a short street about a whopping 700meters away and that this may buy me some time to catch up with it. I could seethat in his heart of hearts he wanted to race up in front of me to stop thetruck; the challenge was, the road that we were walking on is a bit of anincline and, like I said, his body was not so inclined. I had to drag a rubbishbin and he had to try and carry his body weight, his weight was a bit on the generous.He was doing his best to be ahead of me, I was doing my best not to go backwith a full rubbish bin. We ended up being at the same pace.

After resolving that I was a raving lunatic who did not takeadvice, the first person I encountered decided to take a car and race after thetruck to try to help the mad man, yours truly; problem is, she did not knowthat there was a short street up ahead. She went looking for the truck to noavail, by the time she had given up on the search and had caught up with me, I,or we (my big-hearted friend and I) had caught up with the truck at the shortstreet. By this time I could not catch my breathe to inform her that I wasactually waiting for the truck at the corner. The truck appeared, the contentsof my rubbish bin were emptied into the truck and I went back home with anempty bin. When I reached the complex, the security guard was not eveninterested in exchanging facial expressions with me. He had obviously learntfrom the noise of the bin that it was now empty.

As I was pulling my empty rubbish bin, feeling particularlyvictorious, I pondered on how my experience was analogous to our daily lives.As we traverse life and try to empty our rubbish bins or simply to get ahead.We meet different kinds of people along the way.

One kind are people who believe that your dreams andaspirations are too lofty to attain – just take what you can, choose an easyway and achieve just that. To an ear of one that has not started the journey;this sounds very sensible. The snag however is that when you have achieved thedownwardly revised dreams, you come back knowing that that was not all that youwanted to achieve or felt you could achieve. Woefully, because you agreed tocut back on your dream, you are now sitting with three challenges:

· you have invited complacency into your life andwill most probably, in like manner, be very reluctant to take the rest of therubbish bin with you.

· the rubbish truck is now even farther

The ‘could have been’ feeling cannot be fleetingly dislodged.

If you are in this state, I believe that you can still chase your dreams – "alive dog is better than a dead lion".

The next kind of people is those who simply think that you justcannot do it, not even telling you to pack light. They will tell you that noone in this family, in this community or in this race has achieved what youseek to achieve, not even a little bit of it; forget about it and spareyourself a lot of heartache. Some of these people are students of history: theywill tell you exactly who tried this in the past and they know exactly how theyfailed. The security guards in my complex live a very quiet and peaceable lifehectically filled with a snail’s pace of one dull moment consistently timed to be followed by another dull moment. Ittherefore does not come as a surprise that the security guard is the one thatfelt, it can’t be done. Not much is known about security guards who escapedtheir dull existence and used the dullness of their work environment as aspringboard to a better life. One MK Mohlala (former CEO of Citypower) is oneperson that I can think of who achieved this that seems like a feat.

The good Samaritans don’t always show up with the means todress up your wounds and pay for your recuperative stay in an inn. Sometimes,all they have is just a stern look accompanied by the phrase “Yes You Can!”.They cannot even tap into their own body of knowledge and pull out an exampleof who did it; they just get your dream and believe that you can do it, howeverseemingly outlandish. They can’t even race up ahead and remove obstacles inyour way: Just thank God that they just believe in you!

Remember that your dream is your dream, that is why it iscalled “your dream”. The people on the sidelines will make so much of input asthey know. Whether be it apathetic, encouragement or discouragement, most of itis done with good intentions and all of it comes from whatever that person hasinside. You have heard it said that the mouth spills what is in the heart. Youcan get encouragement from one with encouragement, you get discouragement fromone with discouragement and apathy from one who is apathetic; never expect todraw blood from a rock.

In any event, your dream is your dream, own it and make ithappen; the world does not owe you anything.

Own Your Dream

The Love Map

2012-01-17T12:29:00.000+02:00

Friends, I listened to Dr Eve on Talk Radio 702 and listed these down as she was speaking about them. I think the source is a Dr John Gottman, who founded the Gottman Relationship Institute. I thought that these are very useful and practical for people in relationships, read and see if it can assist to enrich your own relationship and those of those important to you.

"Love Map

1. I can name my partner’s best friends

2. I can tell the stresses that my partner iscurrently facing

3. I know the names of people who are currentlyirritating in my partner’s life

4. I can tell you some of my partner’s life dreams

5. I’m very familiar with my partner’s religiousbeliefs and ideas

6. I can tell you about my partner’s basicphilosophy of life

7. I can list the relatives my partner likes theleast

8. I can tell you my partner’s favourite music

9. I can list my partner’s favourite movies

10. I know the three times that have been mostspecial in my partner’s life

11. I can tell the most stressful thing thathappened to my partner as a child

12. I can list my partner’s hopes and aspirations

13. I know my partner’s major current worries

14. I know my partner’s friends

15. I know what my partner would do if s/he suddenlywon the lottery

16. I can tell you in detail my first impressions ofmy partner

17. Periodically I update myself of my partner’sworld

18. I feel my partner knows me pretty well

19. My partner is familiar with my hopes andaspirations"

Dr Eve

Crutches and Scaffolding

2011-12-27T23:07:00.000+02:00

In case of injury to the legs, it sometimes becomesnecessary to make use of a crutch during the recuperative process. The crutch isthere between the time of injury and the recuperation and is not necessaryafter a person has recuperated. In the event that the person still elects tocarry the crutch, all it becomes really is a burden that slows the erstwhile patientand gets the erstwhile patient to a state and pace similar to the one the erstwhile patientwas in when they were still a patient.

Crutches have to be distinguished from prosthesis. Whena prosthesis is fitted into a person, the intention is for the device to be apermanent feature in that person’s body. Prosthesis assist people with allsorts of things, from assisting limbs to things that are as complex as aproperly synchronized heartbeat. Aah the brilliance of the human mind.

In buildings, scaffolding is used as a temporary fixturethat assists the builders in the building process; they are usually steel pipes;in the east, they use bamboo as scaffolding.

The common thing about crutches and scaffolding is that theyare temporary.

Crutches are used by individuals and groups of individuals:By families, by communities and by nations. I think that in our lives we alsohave crutches and scaffolding. I don’t intend to point many examples of life crutchesand scaffolding, I will make one or two examples and hope that you will usethat to judge what is and is not a crutch in your own life. I will also includesomething I’m not certain about, either to get your mind working or to point ata seemingly outlandish idea of what may be scaffolding.

An individual who starts abusing alcohol may need the twelvesteps program offered by the AA to deal with the drinking problem. As soon asthe twelve steps have been completed and have helped, the person does not needto attend AA meetings anymore. I think that we have to also bear in mind that crutchesare used by people who need them to perform normal day-to-day functions thatnormal human beings can easily do without the assistance of crutches. It istherefore not everyone that needs the crutches; it is only those who fall intoa situation where they are unable to perform normal day-to-day functions thathave a need for crutches.

In South African politics, those that were opposed to racediscrimination found it necessary to unite in a common effort to rid thecountry of our common enemy. Comrades therefore stuck together through thick andthin, even to the extent of laying down their lives for the good of theircomrades. Some of the wrong things that were committed by the comrades were overlookedwhen they did not involve selling out other comrades. Selling out was a capitalsin fitting only capital punishment. The very unfortunate practice euphemisticallycalled necklacing was reserved for those who were suspected of selling out. Inthis post and without opining on the nitty gritty, the advantages anddisadvantages of this unity and ‘blind loyalty’, I think that we owe the welcomedemise of apartheid to it. As you know, unless you have a humongous commonenemy like a system that discriminates on the basis of the melanin contained inpeople’s skin tissues; any form of blind loyalty is bad for any group ofpeople. This blind loyalty was therefore a crutch, the scaffolding that builtwhat we amorously called the New South Africa. The gloss in our New SouthAfrica has, however, been dimmed to the point that the New South Africa isslowly taking on the characteristics of the old South Africa by a cancerouspractice called corruption. I suspect that this blind loyalty is the reason forthe entrenchment of corruption where comrades still feel the need to protecteach other in the face of damaging evidence against another. Any person whoexposes the corruption is politically assassinated or sent to the politicalwilderness. The blind loyalty was a scaffold and, like any scaffold that hasably discharged its purpose, now it makes our new South Africa unsightly.

When it comes to religion, it is interesting to note thathuman beings moved from Theism to Monotheism to Polytheism to Evolution to Monotheismto Atheism to Agnosticism. Now there are those who couldn’t care less aboutthose things and call themselves Apatheists. Apatheists say they don’t carewhether there is a God or not and by what name whatever God there may be iscalled. There are those who believe that religion is a crutch and that some ofthe authoritative books used in religion are obsolete. Don’t cringe.

If you ever find yourself in a position where you require acrutch or a scaffold, make good use of it. What we need to be very carefulabout is how long they are used. They are there to solve a problem and becomethe very embodiment of a problem if they are used a day more than they shouldbe used.

The break point

2011-11-28T14:49:00.001+02:00

After being exposed to the writings of a certain Katleho Sethabela, and because of her style of writing, I wrote this a few years ago. Thought it would be suitable to share during the 16 days of activism against child and woman abuse.

How long isa piece of string?

How long isa china man’s surname?

What is thebreakpoint?

To theabuser I ask:

How longwill you sexually abuse that young girl?

… is sheyour daughter?

… did yousay your niece?

… is thatreally your grand daughter?

… she lookslike your neighbour’s dear girl?

… but thisis a stranger you met on the streets.

How longwill you curse her?

make herfeel like she’s nothing,

Inflictpain to her,

to her soul

to herfuture

to herdreams

Why are youinterfering with her aspirations?

Herdefinition of manhood,

herinnocence,

herignorance

Look at meI’m talking to you!

How long doyou intend doing this?

Is thisyour idea of fun?

Is thisyour idea of dealing with your own demons?

How longbefore she breaks down completely?

Before shelooses it all,

before shedreams no more.

You!

Yes you!

I’m talkingto you!

How long doyou want to beat up your wife?

How long doyou intend to abuse her?

To treather like she has the mind of an infant

Is she notan adult?

can she notthink?

Is this notthe mother of your children?

The womanof your dreams?

The one yousaid you could not live without?

What hasshe become?

Do youthink that the fact that she’s a woman is some kind of handicap

How so?

Now thatyou think you have more brain power,

more physicalpower

You are theman!

Tell me howa woman’s womanhood qualifies her as your punching bag,

yourcursing bag.

Why shouldshe be downtrodden?

Is she notworthy of respect?

And you!

You thinkthat a colour of a person’s skin define

His mentalcapabilities

Her accessto resources

His titleto a chance

Her worthas a human being

Or what?

You thinkyour sophisticated, world class security system will suffice when yourneighbour

Is hungry,

Angry,

Without ajob

No money

No life

No chance

And allthese attributed only to the colour of her skin

Think again

How long isa piece of string

How long isa china man’s surname

What is thebreakpoint

Why do wespend so much time ploughing

Pain

Misery

Suffering

So muchenergy is dissipated on breeding

Hatred

Acrimony

Mistrust

How longbefore we cannot relate as fellow human beings

Is it sodifficult to expend our time our resources our energies on

Buildingbridges

Cultivatinglove

Breedingunderstanding

Birthing peace

ROCKY -- The Story Behind The Story!

2011-11-18T10:48:00.000+02:00

Do Good for Goodness’ Sake

2011-11-15T10:14:00.001+02:00

You have heard it said that if you do good you will get goodrewards for the good that you do. I believe this to be so but am concernedabout two things:

Firstly, is that what always happens? That is, does italways happen that when you do good, you have good rewards coming your way? Isthere an exception to this rule?

Secondly, is there no merit in being someone who wishes todo good, not for any reward that may come your way but simply because thereward is in the good act that you do?

I want to believe that there is merit in doing good for thesake of the goodness that you do. All of us want to belong somewhere. I haveopined in the talk I gave at my alma mater that in life there is always atussle between good and evil, I argued that if we do not encourage andcelebrate the good, the bad will pull all of us into it. The essence of thecontention is that it is necessary to have people pulling all of humanitytowards good so that those that are pulling humanity towards the bad do not winthe tussle of life. I want to be one of the people that are pulling the worldtowards good so that good wins.

There is general consensus of all the great teachers that ‘youwill always have the poor among you’, what, I think we should all strive for isto keep the numbers of the poor at a bare minimum and ensure that we have moreand more people who can pull those who fall into poverty out of poverty. Thereis merit in selling this aim to find Gideon, to speak to the dry bones, justfor the sake of doing that.

The 11^thchapter of the book of Hebrews, is the bible’s own Hall of Fame. It listspeople who accomplished a lot of things and attributes their accomplishments tofaith. It shows how certain sacrifices were made in order to get a reward. Afew verses that are neatly nestled in this chapter caught my attention as I waspondering about this. These verses speak of people who did not receive the promise,it speaks of people who were cruelly mocked, whipped, imprisoned, stoned, theirbodies were torn apart, they were killed, they were afflicted, they weretormented etc. Of these people, the bible says they did not receive the promise;they did good, not for their sakes but for the sakes of others.

In South Africa we havemany sung and unsung heroes who lost their lives in a gallant struggle againstracial discrimination in all its forms. Many of these people did what they didnot because they were expecting a reward but because they understood that the way toeat an elephant is to eat one piece at a time, if you cannot finish theelephant, those who come after you will have a better chance of finishing theelephant.

If you ask the 1976 generation of political activists, they will tellyou that they were told by their parents that you guys believe you will finishthis elephant, you will not, it will finish you. Their parents told them thatthe Mandelas, Sisulus and Motsoaledis were in prison and the system had smittenthem and they too would suffer the same fate.

At times we find evilall around us overwhelming us, it is in these times that we sorely need peoplewho will resolve to do good for goodness’ sake, if a reward comes it will come,if it does not it won’t, but goodness will have been done.

You probably want to counter this argument by the perceived imperative that people work better when there is a reward. Much as this is true to a large extent, me and you are not supposed to be ordinary people, we are people who endeavour to be the best we can be, to reach our highest self. The highest self is reached whencircumstances do not dictate what you do or not do. This is the state where youdetermine how you feel, how you will respond to a situation. This is where youremotions are not tossed to and fro by your circumstances. This is where you dogood for goodness’ sake. You do good because you have decided to do good

Today I encourage you to resolve to do good for the sake ofgoodness. That the desire to do good must not be propelled by some reward thatone believes that they will get but to do good for goodness’ sake.

What is in your hand

2011-11-01T15:53:00.001+02:00

I have written on the parable of talents before in a piece called The Kingdom of Talents. I recently re-read this piece and recalled all the lessons that I learnt from this parable and realised that, I missed a very important lesson from this parable and from life lessons that are related to it. The three lessons I missed all the umpteen times that I read the parable of talents are:

1. Don't judge the One who gave you what is in your hand by what is in your hand;
2. Don't judge what is in your hand by what is in the hand of another; and
3. Use what is in your hand, that is all the you really have.

I cannot think of one person who was regarded as exceptional in their time who did not take these lessons to heart, consciously or unconsciously.

I am in the process of reading the biography of Steve Jobs and have come to the understanding that, love him or hate him, Steve Jobs made an indelible mark in about four industries. What is it that Mr Jobs had in his hand? It was drilled in him that he was special from childhood, he was then given the time and space to do what he wanted, how he wanted to do it. This afforded him a chance to deal with what was in his hands. He started to look around and history tells us that he had a knack to see great things. He did not have to produce them, others produced them and he just knew more than the producer on what would make that product great. Those who have a dim view of him, wish he had had other things in his hand. They probably think so because they, in their own hand, may have that which they find Mr Jobs not to have, but could they, in their wildest dream have the knowledge of what it is that would revolutionize the whole world and revolutionize industries. I'm afraid not.

The bible records two stories that make this point so abundantly clear:

The one is the recruitment of Moses. Moses is shown a strange phenomenon of fire in the middle of a bush and the bush is not getting consumed. In this spectacle, its as if the fire and bush are living in perfect harmony. The story is clear that the bush and fire were just used to draw Moses' attention; more like the naked lady on the sports car advert or the food in an advert of a fridge. Advertisers learn from this that if you want someone's attention you should put something that will intrigue them in the way of the thing you want to draw their attention to. Just make sure that the thing used to draw the attention does not consume all the the attention. I digress.

A discussion ensues between Moses and God first about the pleasantries of 'nice to meet you' and more importantly, what the mission impossible is. Moses points out the obvious that the mission impossible is impossible, the response he gets is a question that seeks to establish what was in the hand of Moses. He used what was in his hand to get buy-in from the Israelites to be part of the mission impossible and for Pharoah to given him an audience and later acquiesce to the mission impossible.

The other story is the story of Jesus feeding the five thousand men (or about twenty thousand people). After instructing the disciples to find food for the twenty thousand people, they indicate that this is impossible and he asks, almost, obstinately, what do you have?

I think that there is something amazing about looking in your hands to see what you have there. As you look at it, don't judge it, don't judge its quantity, don't judge the one who gave it to you, don't compare what you have with what other people have. Focus on what you have and empty its potential.

You have heard it said that, there is no scientific way of explaining why a bumble bee is able to fly, the only reason that is given is that the bumble bee is oblivious to the human science of flying. Unlike the ostrich, what the bumble bee did was NOT to look at other flying insects and birds to determine whether the fact that it has wings meant it could fly. It is very difficult in a world overflowing with information not to compare what is in one's hand with what is in another's hand. But all the people who are significant, found a way of to do this and still do to this day.

These lessons are crucial, please don't forget them:

1. Don't judge the One who gave you what is in your hand by what is in your hand;
2. Don't judge what is in your hand by what is in the hand of another; and
3. Use what is in your hand, that is all the you really have

It is often true that it does not really matter what is in the hands, all that matters is in whose hands is it. You then determine what can be extracted from what is in your hands.

Life Lesson from a Papaya – Give of Yourself

2011-10-25T10:35:00.000+02:00

So this other day I am opening a papaya. I love fruits likepapayas but I don’t quite like the work that is associated with ingesting them;you kind of have to earn the right to eat it. When I opened it, what struck mewas the number of seeds that was in this one papaya, this is pure abundance;there are so many papayas in one papaya. Of course, unfortunately, the seedsthat I found in my papaya were destined for the dustbin as I do not really havethe time nor the inclination to learn how I can raise my own papayas.

For any one papaya to give the many papayas that are lockedup in it, it must offer the ultimate sacrifice, it must allow itself to be cutoff from its branch, be opened up and, once it is opened up, it is gone, or isit really gone. Once an individual papaya is reaped, it starts its downwardspiral to its certain demise. Nature has ensured that papayas that are notreaped, fall off their branches by themselves and are opened up by a process ofdecomposition. Papayas throughout history have learnt that it is important forthem to die in order for their beings to be sustained. Whether grown formallyor informally, the thing that sustains any species is for the individual memberof the species to give of themselves to their species the ultimate gift: theirown lives.

Jesus must have similarly seen a number of papayas in hisvery short sojourn on earth or any other fruit when he proclaimed that unless aseed falls into the ground and dies, it stays alone, it stays by itself, itcannot propagate its species. But if a seed falls to the ground and dies, itbrings more fruit, more individual species of its kind are birthed to propagateits kind.

All purist capitalists systems and rights cultures teachtheir followers to preserve themselves, preserve their possessions, preservetheir talents, preserve their money. Nature teaches us something different,nature teaches us that self preservation is only necessary when one is veryyoung and feeble and completely oblivious to the world around them. We have tomake sure that small babies are nursed and they grow safely. As soon as theybecome aware of the world around them, children must be taught that the worldaround them expects a contribution from them. It is this manner of life that isselfless that is worth more than one that is selfish. This is the reason why itdoes not matter how much personal wealth one acquires, as long as that wealthis not shared with many and is not good for many, the few who inherit that wealthoften squander it; because wealth needs to benefit many and cannot be handledby just a few. To require a few to handle wealth is wasting the wealth.

For our lives to amount to anything they have to be livedfor the good of other people, they have to be lived for the good of those thatare around us and the many that must benefit from each of us. We have tograduate from being conscious of ourselves to being conscious of our being. Ourbeing extends more than ourselves. In fact, it is not possible to find yourselfand not find your fellow human beings and not find the whole of nature.

A friend of mine who loves the bible, likes saying that itis always interesting to find people readily accepting that they (and not otherpeople) are “fearfully and wonderfullymade”. Believing that I am made in the image of God should be discarded ifit does not believe that the next person is also made in the image of God.Believing that the world was void before creation and that the creator createdeverything that is, is incomplete if you do not believe that the Creator is theEssence of all that is. The best expression of my being is the deliberateeffect that I have on your being. This is the only expression of my being,there is no other expression of my being. If the papaya had a choice not toallow itself to be cut off from the branch, be opened up and the seeds insideit to fall to the ground and die, the world would run out of papayas. The onlyway that the world still has this juicy delicious fruit is because nature demandsthat each and every papaya must give of itself to its world for thepreservation of its being.

Many members of the human species that deems itself as thesuperior species in nature still have to learn that if individual members ofthe species don’t give of themselves, give of their time, give of their talent,give of their possessions to those who will find use for them, the propagationof the species will end. The propagation of the human species and our world hasbeen made possible by individual members of the human species that understood beingand did not selfishly proclaim to have been made in the image of God when thereis no recognition that the other is also made in the image of God. All the ismsthat have died, were isms that afforded some specialness on one person at theexpense of others. Because of individual choice, we do not always do this, when we have not done it, we end up at a place where it is abundantly clear that we have to encourage aculture of giving off of ourselves for self-preservation.

This principle is applicable in any and every human venture –practice it and you and your world will flourish. Because unless a seed fallsto the ground and dies, it stays alone,

GIVE OF YOURSELF.

Keynote address - Nelson R Mandela School of Law - 21 October 2011

2011-10-24T13:07:00.000+02:00

The Dean of the Faculty of Law,Professor Obeng Mireko

The Registrar of the University ofFort Hare, Dr Mrwetyana

Senior Lecturers of the Law Faculty

Lecturers in the Faculty of Law

Staff of the Law Faculty

The Chairperson of the Law StudentsCouncil

Executive members of the Law StudentsCouncil

Students

Ladies and Gentlemen

Disclaimers

The importance of the occasion willforce me to speak my mind, there is a lot of work that needs to be done in ourcountry.

I today, hold a brief only for theexcellence that is being celebrated today

Introduction

It is a distinct pleasure for me to beinvited to this august occasion of the celebration of excellence in my alma mater. When I was asked if I couldparticipate in a program in this institution, I stated to the requester that itwould be an absolute pleasure for me to come here and participate even before Iknew what the event was all about. I therefore thank the Faculty and thestudents for allowing me to be one of the people who comes to share some thoughtsas the Faculty celebrates and honours the best of its products. I have not yetfound a better way to call a celebrant than the Isixhosa word ‘u singaye’: Hearty congratulations tothose who have brought us here today, osingaye, the students who were not afraid of shining brighter than theirpeers and who were not afraid to show their peers that they too can shinebrighter. I want to believe that these students shone because of theinspirational lecturers who taught them the law and told them about life. Tothe students and the lecturers I beg, KEEP ON KEEPING ON WITH YOUR GOOD.

In defining its mission, the Facultystates that its raison d’etre as the production “of law graduates who are outstanding in their knowledge and technicalcompetence”. This event is therefore to celebrate the achievement of thisstated raison d’etre.

In her book, A Return to Love:Reflections on the Principles of a Course in Miracles, Marrianne Williamson,asserts that:

“Our deepest fear is not that we areinadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is ourlight, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I tobe brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing smalldoes not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so thatother people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, aschildren do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us.It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own lightshine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we areliberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

What Ms Williamson states, which Iconcur with, is that oftentimes, we are afraid of our own abilities and cower,we think our brilliance will not be good for the eyes of others and we defer toour least. We are here to, hopefully, celebrate the light, the brilliance and thetalent of those who were not afraid of their own abilities. I say ‘hopefully’because what we have here is, really a comparison of the performance of anumber of students, out of which, those that obtained the best honours aretoday celebrated. I don’t say this to diminish the stature of this event or theaccomplishments of those who are honoured today, a cursory look at my own academicrecord at this institution will show that I would be the last to do so. I saythis to make the point that the greatest enemy of each of us is as muchour last success as it is our last failure. If you who are celebratedtoday, fail to use this achievement as a stepping stone to more and betterachievements, you will have failed to acknowledge this occasion. Those of youwho are to witness this liberation from personal fear must also be liberated oftheir own personal fears as well.

When I received this invite, I decidedthat, because you cannot give from what you don’t have, I will not attempt todazzle you with my brilliance or that of the many authors that I have not read.I decided instead that I will share with you a few thoughts from my sojourn kwaNokholeji.

I must congratulate the students ofthis university for electing to participate in the partnership of the Studentsfor Law and Social Justice which seeks to produce a new generation of legaleagles for this country and from this country. I believe that this is a very importantinitiative because, if your work does not serve others, there is very littlevalue to the work that you do.

TheLaw Students Council

During my stay at this institution,which was a tad or two longer than my welcome, I happened to serve as atreasurer of the Law Students Committee, when the deputy chairman of the LSCpassed away, early during our term, I also acted in his position. I must saythat our term of office during that year was less than illustrious, we attendedto the normal day-to-day business of the LSC. The lowest point was when we gottowards the end of that year and found that we had not used the funds that wereallocated to us by the SRC and we had no academically inclined plan to applythe funds. In order to ensure that these funds were used up before the end ofour term of office, our wisdom was to take a trip to some chalets somewhere inPE (the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan) and spend the weekend there, literallyburning the money, about R6,500.00, nothing educational, nothing about the law.I am able to say this because I was party to that horrendous criminal decision.The funds allocated to us were supposed to be applied to educational programs, becauseof a lack of planning and innovation, the easiest way out for us was tosquander the funds. With the benefit of hindsight, I think I would havefelt better to return the funds than burning the money in that fashion.

TheAll Sports Committee

There is a year where I was a chairmanof the All Sports Committee; I guess when I headed this committee, I had learntmy lesson in the experience that I had as a treasurer and acting deputychairman of the LSC. As chairman of the All Sports Committee, I was approachedby persons who claimed to be belonging to a sporting code called Judo,requesting funds. I indicated to these gentlemen who looked like people whohave not spent a day in the gym or even near a gym that, before I considertheir request, I would like to see where they train as part of some visits thatI was doing to all the sporting codes. I asked the gentlemen to favour me withthe time and place where they exercise and practice their martial art and thatwas the last I heard from them.

As chairman of All Sports Committee, Iwas also approached by Netball people wishing to have their allocationincreased. I asked them to give me a motivation for this, they feltdisrespected and decided that they wanted to have a meeting with me so thatthey can set me straight. I acceded to the idea of the meeting because, attimes, I have a low sense of appreciation for intimidation. I sat with them andstill indicated that I would like to have a written motivation for thisrequest. We had some, not so pleasant exchanges in that meeting and they leftknowing that, without a written motivation, their request was not even going tobe mentioned anywhere else.

I cite my experiences in the LSC andAll Sports Committee to make the point that leaders are stewards – those whocannot responsibly hold leadership positions should stay very far from anyleadership position. The leader must bethere to act in the best interests of all those who are affected by theleader’s position and not satisfy some narrow interests of those who placed theleader in leadership. If those that placed you in leadership are the onlyones affected by your leadership, by all means, act in their interests. If yourleadership affects those who elected you and those who opposed your appointmentto leadership, you lead in the interests of those who elected you and those whoopposed you.

Thequality of lecturers and the obligation of a student

I don’t know if the quality of yourlecturers has improved, but in our time, we had some dodgy lecturers. We hadthe misfortune of being taught by people that I doubted were au fait with the subject matter thatthey were supposed to teach to us. Because of a deficient concentration span,as soon as I haboured the suspicion that Mr Prof did not quite have a grasp ofthe subject matter, I would simply not come close to the Law building at thetimes of that lecture. I found myself bunking many lectures and thus spent moreyears on campus than were prescribed for the completion of my degree. I did notknow that it was not my place to run assessment tests on the lecturers thattaught us. My primary and almostsingular role was to learn the subject-matter and to find out what the lecturerwanted for me to satisfy the requirements of the course. I needed tounderstand that, at times these two converge and, at times, they unfortunately don’t.Whether or not they converged, I had to pass, I had to pass well and pass withinthe time prescribed for that course.

An example of this happened when I hadAfrican Law A as the only outstanding course to satisfy the requirements of mydegree. At the time, we were taught by a lecturer who wanted nothing but toromanticize about Africa Law. According to him, our primitive indigenous legalsystem was the best thing to ever happen to our universe. All that thislecturer required was a romantic explanation of indigenous legal system principlesfor the student to get distinction, I did that and I got a distinction for thatcourse. This is an example of where the subject –matter and the lecturer’srequirements did not converge. I learnt to give the lecturer what the lecturerwanted from me – that was supposed to be my primary and most importantpre-occupation in this institution. If you understand training and tutelage,you will know that the training is forthe trainee; it is not for the benefit of the trainer. It is thereforeincumbent on the trainee to ensure that s/he is trained. If the trainee isfortunate enough to have a good trainer, then the trainee will benefit from thegood training received from a good trainer.

At this point, I must point out that Iwish that the trainers are inspirational to the trainees and train them well. Producingtrainees that “are outstanding in theirknowledge and technical competence” The trainers must know that they arebuilding an essential part of law practice that will span the entire legalpractice. You are here training the future of this country. The futureattorneys, advocates, judges, legal advisors etc. In the good of this country,please train and inspire these trainees. Remember that, as soon as thesetrainees qualify from this quasi-community that is shielded, they are usheredinto a jungle that has no mercy to things like the background of thesetrainees, to this jungle, they can either do their work or they can’t, that isthe difference between working as lawyer cumtout and being inundated with work that you have not solicited. Remember that,at this stage, the very fact that they come from this institution, is notviewed favourably. I beg you trainers to produce lawyers that “are outstanding in their knowledge andtechnical competence”, as the faculty’s raison d’etre states. Train for empowerment, don’t allow yourrequirements to be at odds with the subject-matter. Empower yourselves, toempower these students. Your training and application to your work canchange the way the products of this institution are viewed by the legalindustry. Yes you can!

I do not say this to lecturers to givestudents an excuse not to apply themselves to their knowledge and technicalcompetence. It is incumbent on the trainee to ensure that you are trained andleave this institution with superior knowledge. The training is for the trainee.

Participationin student politics for meaningful development

We came to Fort Hare after the banningof the infamous Hogsback Rule. There was free political activity on campus as BrigadierOupa Gqozo, a home boy of mine, had recently toppled the government of the thenPrime Minister Lennox Sebe in a Republic then known as Ciskei. Every year waspunctuated by strike action for this or that cause. At the beginning of theyear, we held a strike to cut the registration fees to the bare minimum. Duringthe year, we held a strike because of the expulsion of some or other studentwho was rowdy or showed negligible movement in his/her studies or some othermisdemeanor. As there were four terms of education, we seemingly ensured thatthere was, at least, a strike for each term; the reasons for the strikes rangedfrom the flimsy to the very flimsy. I can confidently say this because the bestarbirter for any tree is the fruit it produces. I cannot stand here and saythat there is something substantial that was achieved by the strikes. I cannotstand here and say that our gallant struggle and seemingly primarypre-occupation improved the quality of the institution and/or the quality ofthe academic standard of the institution. We held strikes for all the wrongreasons that you can possibly think of. As the strikes raged and the debt ofstudents to the university increased, a strange phenomenon eventuated: students’rooms and parties became more and more expensive as the infrastructure of theuniversity was on a downward slippery slope. These were the days when everyonewas untouchable: the students and the general workers were Kings, theuniversity management were supposed to toe the proverbial line or ship outunceremoniously. This was a time when the tail violently wagged the dog. We haddeferred to the least among us and we bequeathed to you this institution that,in many respects appears to be an institution in a third world country.

I beg you to learn from our mistakes.Don’t repeat them, don’t renovate them, just have an institution and facultythat is run with a view for it and its products to compete with the best in theworld.

Celebratingexcellence

William Du Bois in September of 1903said words that should ring true today in our country when he said of theNegros:

“The Negro race, like all races, is going to besaved by its exceptional men. The problem of education, then, among Negroesmust first of all deal with the Talented Tenth; it is the problem of developingthe Best of this race that they may guide the Mass away from the contaminationand death of the Worst, in their own and other races.”

If we leave the fate of our country inthe hands of people that are not exceptional, people who’s track record shouldtell us that they are far from exceptional, we run a risk of not having acountry that is exceptional. We run the risk of finding ourselves where weblame ‘imperialists’ for effecting regime change in our country. If we fail to recognise, honour andencourage excellence, the best will not guide the masses away from thecontamination and death of the worst. The best are highly mobile, they arethe citizens of the world and don’t recognize borders in any human venture. Inany nation, there isa constant tussle between the best and the worst. In hisclosing remarks of the above speech, William Du Bois says:

“Men of America, the problem is plain before you.Here is a race transplanted through the criminal foolishness of your fathers.Whether you like it or not the millions are here, and here they will remain. Ifyou do not lift them up, they will pull you down. Education and work are the levers to uplift a people. Work alonewill not do it unless inspired by the right ideals and guided by intelligence.Education must not simply teach work--it must teach Life. The Talented Tenth ofthe Negro race must be made leaders of thought and missionaries of cultureamong their people. No others can do this work and Negro colleges must trainmen for it. The Negro race, like all other races, is going to be saved by itsexceptional men.”

When you understand the milieu and forgivethe sexist tone to this, you find that these words ring true even today. If we fail to uplift those who have beendebased over the years, they will pull all of us down; it’s a tussle of life. Education and work are the bestlevers that we can use. It is definitely not the sexy issues that are prone tograb and horde headlines that will rid us of a people produced through thecriminal folly of our fathers. It is, the work that happens in private, inclasses, in lecture halls of institutions of higher learning, where all thosethat are participants agree on a common vision to produce excellence, toproduce the best, to celebrate virtue. We must ensure the mass production ofthe best so that there are more people on the lever on the side of upliftment,so that there are more people capable of pulling up those among us who are lessthan fortunate.

When he encouraged students atStanford University to stay hungry and stay foolish, Steve Jobs who was anadopted child to working class parents had this to say:

“Itwasn’t all romantic. I didn’t have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor infriends’ rooms, I returned coke bottles for the 5¢ deposits to buy food with,and I would walk the 7 miles (about 11,27 km) across town every Sunday night toget one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it. And much ofwhat I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to bepriceless later on.”

There was a time when one of therichest men in the world slept on the floor of friends’ rooms and had to walkfor more than 11 kms to get a decent meal. Yet he rose above that andrevolutionized the IT, music and film industries.

In congratulating those of you whowill be receiving prizes, I pose a challenge to those who are being celebratedto dig deeper into themselves and shine brighter – don’t let your success holdyou back. I pose a challenge to those of you who are not receiving prizes todayto give yourself a price at the end of the year as you will have revealed moreof your brilliance. I pose a unison challenge to the Dean, the Heads ofDepartment, the Student Leaders of this faculty and of this institution toencourage, celebrate and foster excellence.

Thank you

Rise Ezekiel

2011-09-21T12:09:00.000+02:00

Allow me to take you to a story that is in the bible that istold by Ezekiel. Ezekiel claims that he was taken by God to a valley that wasfull of dry bones. When he arrived at this valley, God took him on a tour ofthe valley to show him that all that was there was dry bones, it is notdead bodies, but dry bones. The tour gave Ezekiel the extent of the problem.After the tour, Ezekiel states that God asked him whether the bones can live.Ezekiel attributes a very witty, non committal answer to himself, his answer isto say that God knows whether the bones can live. In the privacy of thatvalley, God gives Ezekiel an instruction to prophesy to the bones. As you know,the word “prophesy” means to speak under inspiration. In this instance, thisword would mean that God told Ezekiel what to say to the dry bones. I guess,part of what the tour of valley showed Ezekiel is that he was all by himself inthis valley, so he could maybe embarrass himself by speaking to these drybones. The story goes on to say that Ezekiel spoke, the bones came together,sinews were formed and bodies were formed. He spoke to the wind and the bodiesstarted breathing and became a great army.

Good Question:	Did this event actually happen?
Great Answer:	I don’t know
Good Follow-up Question:	What is the relevance of this story?
Response:	Well, read on please

In our time, in our country and in our generation we havevalleys of utter hopelessness. With tongue firmly in cheek, we boast the likes of Alex, Diepsloot, the CapeFlats and our correctional facilities. The ‘h’ section of the lexicon ofthese valleys of dry bones does not have the word ‘hope’. What we sorely lackare Ezekiels who are willing to talk life to the dry bones in these valleys. Dry bones appear much worse than deadbodies. Although both are dead, if you have delusions of grandeur that tell youyou can raise the dead, I’m sure that you, delusional and all, will prefer todeal with dead bodies than dry bones. These were not skeletons neatly packed according to their former bodies; they were bonesthat were dry, most of them, depending on size, would have left their co-bonesin a body.

I have been concerned by my observation that:

When you look at the civil society and the opposition parties in South Africa (mostly made up of the middle class), you find people who don’t evenhave an iota of faith in the ruling party, who question each and everything thatthe ruling party does. These people constantly threaten to use the judiciary tocrack the whip against the ruling party. These people are seized by what theyunderstand to be a deep concern about what they call the protection of theconstitution against what they believe is the executive trying to water downthe rights enshrined in the constitution. There is therefore this scrambleabout what the constitution means and says and means, probably for good and badreason.

You look at the ruling political party and find people whoare aware that they are not trusted and have resolved not to lift a finger totry and win some grain of confidence, just a brownie point or two. They arehappy with the ‘political mandate’ to be in power and would not be bothered if theyare not trusted. After all, the people who mistrust them are a minority andthis very minority is not trusted by the majority of the electorate that,mainly for historical reasons, trust or maybe prefer the ruling party. [My very humble view is that, as soon as a political party is elected into political power, itspre-occupation must be the whole nation which includes those who vociferouslycampaigned against the ruling party; but that’s just me]. As if that is not theend of the matter, the most important pre-occupation of the ruling party appearsto be leadership positions in the ruling party, the transformation agenda isnot even on the back burner, it is something that is pulled to quiet politicalopponents and for electioneering purposes only. It is as if the transformationagenda has this big bold label in bright red letters

“FOR ELECTIONEERING

PURPOSESONLY”.

Then you look at business, big, medium and small and you find peoplewho are happy to make money and could not be bothered whether the country isstable or not. To them transformation and nation building is only done if itmakes sense to the short sighted profit objectives, as for what is in the bestinterest of the nation, leave that to the politicians, that is their preserve.

… and who is talking to the valleys of dry bones liberally strewn in the length and breadth of our country?

Who is speaking life words to those who have no hope andinspiring them to be more positive about their future. Who is shaping thedreams of that little girl attending a primary school in Alex. Who is tellingthe young boy who is rapping with his friends at midnight in the streets of Diepsloot that he isto work to ensure that his future is much brighter than his parents’ presentand Yes! he can. Who is telling the young man about to finishhis term of residence at our correctional facilities that he should ensure thathis stay was correctional and change his route to one that will not requirestate institutions to correct it again. Who is their Ezekiel, who stands boldly in the valleys of dry bones and talk life to the dry bones? It really does not have to be many dry bones thatthe Ezekiel is talking to.

Unfortunately, a stint of sitting quietly at any valley ofdry bones will tell you that the only talk there is death, destruction and despondencywhich only is fertile ground for breeding death and destruction at the valleyand beyond the valley.

We are fortunate to livein a country that has people who used to be residents of the valley of drybones. Who heard the voice of an Ezekiel saying: "Behold, I will cause breath toenter you, and you will live and youwill know that I am the LORD".

Let Ezekiel rise in you!

Philip Zimbardo shows how people become monsters ... or heroes | Video on TED.com

2011-09-02T14:50:00.000+02:00

Philip Zimbardo shows how people become monsters ... or heroes | Video on TED.com

Mwansa - "My New Philosophy"(single)

2011-08-04T13:54:00.000+02:00

This ain't It!!!

2011-07-19T11:32:00.002+02:00

The choice of the caption is informed by the fact that the last person to declare “This is It”, did not see the “It” that he wished for. One of the bible verses I like states an age old adage: “The race is not given to the swift, nor the battle to the strong. Time and chance happen to them all”.

I also wish to record in these next few lines something that we all know; something that I have written elsewhere that is: your predisposition is not your destiny. Elsewhere I wrote it as “my biography, good or bad, is not my destiny”. Not everyone reaches the end that they are predisposed for, whether the end they are predisposed for is good or bad.

The fastest man on the planet, one Usain Bolt, did not become the fastest man on the planet because he was predisposed to being the fastest man on the planet. It was reported that the Jamaican government spent a lot of money developing athletics and athletes in Jamaica. If these reports are true, that will only contribute to predisposition. But what makes the man with an apt surname for his position in the world stand out like a sore thumb is that he worked hard to stand out like a sore thumb. He became the fastest man on the planet through blood, sweat and tears.

Oprah Winfrey was not predisposed to be the Queen of Talk and to have her show repeated over 25 years by an American broadcaster and sold to broadcasters around the world. At a time when there was a concept of ‘a face for television’, she was said not to have a face for television; Ms Winfrey was told “This is It!” for you, you can’t make it with that face in this industry; yes the brains are good, but you need the face more than the brains. After 25 years of her show on television, when she has attained the ability and credibility to credulously own her own production company called “OWN”, when she has become a quality assurer of books (without having written a book), she assures spiritual leaders, psychologist etc; we know that she said “This ain’t It!” and the world reverberated.

Steve Jobs had to start a company and be fired from that company and then return to that company for us to have computers that show us the characters that we are typing. Hopefully without revealing my age, I can reveal that I learnt to type at a time when you had to print a document to see what the hell “Times New Roman” looked like. Those who are oblivious to this era and see the font style and size on their computer monitor have no idea what it is not to be able to see this on the screen and are forgiven for not getting it. We have computers we can play with, a phone that does more of everything else than phoning. His company pioneered the tablet (iPad). He has created a platform for developers of applications to play and see whether their applications work. He is threatening traditional radios and traditional television by making podcasts available at any time of the day. My father used to wait for his favourite radio show and I, even whilst toddling because of age, was not supposed to disturb him when it started Podcasts have made it possible for the radio shows to wait for you. The life of Steve Jobs says that he was not predisposed to what he achieved, he said “This ain’t It!” and some of us are fans of this university drop out for life.

The co-creators of the series Chicken Soup for the Soul, Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen, had more than a hundred rejections for this work. They tell of instances where publishers told them that the title will not work; the public is not ready for these kinds of stories etc. The message from the seasoned publishers was: chaps, nice attempt but “This is It”, this won’t work. Today it is reported that this series has 200 book titles, 112 million books have been sold, the titles have been translated into 40 languages, there are CDs, DVDs, cards, children entertainment products all because Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen said "This ain’t It!"

If you open any biography or autobiography, you learn that the people who feel their lives are worth recording this way were not always predisposed or feeling predisposed to the achievements that they mustered. The common thread amongst them all is that they said “This ain’t It!”; circumstances around them told them “This is It!” and they unequivocally responded “This ain't It!”.

It appears that in a lot of cases where the “This is It” was the loudest, the response to say “This ain't It!” was also the loudest.

There are, unfortunately, those who agreed wholeheartedly and accepted the “This is It!” status without questioning it. They have warmly embraced this defeatist status and there is no telling them otherwise. They have blinded themselves to any other possibilities. They have blinded themselves to peers who have smitten the very circumstances they fail to contend with. I hope that one of those people will stumble upon these pages and/or similar messages from other sources and know that “This ain’t It!”.

Men and Women who appreciate what it is to be born in the image and likeness of God, who appreciate what it is to share the essence of God, know that they can always say “This ain’t It!” when the vicissitudes that are inherent in life tell them otherwise. Jack Canfield calls this: rejecting the rejection.

I am also aware that part of our predisposition is self-created. We either make certain things easy or difficult for ourselves. When we have stacked up the odds against ourselves, we can still rise above those odds with a declaration “This ain’t It!” and see the life that we only dreamt of and/or inspire others to see the life that they thought only existed in lalaland.

Have a “This ain’t It!” attitude this and everyday

THIS AIN’T IT!!!

Michelle Obama speaks in South Africa

2011-07-06T15:26:00.000+02:00

Pretty Yende - Rusalka - Dvorzak

2011-07-04T12:20:00.000+02:00

Pursuit of Truth

2011-06-14T00:04:00.001+02:00

I’m certain that none of us drives to an information board that tells us where a place is and park there as if we have reached the destination when all we have come to is the board that points the direction to the desired destination. Any person who does this is a menace2society, he must immediately be united with his straight jacket and promptly committed back to the mental institution.

I became a bit scared the one time when I pondered on a very crucial conversation that Jesus had with His disciples. He starts off by asking them who other people say He is. They tell Him that people think that He is someone that was great, that died and now has been reincarnated. They guessed of John the Baptist, Elijah, Jeremiah or some or other dead prophet. These were not Hindus and I am unaware of anything in their religion that suggested the possibility of a reincarnation. But because they believed that Jesus was someone that was ‘too special’; He must be someone that lived a great life, died and lived again. I mean who gets the chance to be great twice in history. In that context, if I were Jesus, I would sit comfortably in the cushy position of being the only person who was known to have been reincarnated and I probably would not bother my followers with any other probing questions. Jesus however saw it fit to come to the point that he was driving at, the second question.

In the work of people who ask others questions to elicit information from them, the sequence of questions is crucially important. The profession I can think of is that of a researcher. As Jesus was driving a point home or eliciting some information from His disciples, he was careful about the sequence of these questions. Let me try to give you my own analysis of these questions in the hope that I will not misrepresent the point.

The first question talks to the view of outsiders: the public image. To Jesus this view is important probably because He thinks that, invariably those that are with Him interact with their surroundings and their views of Him are tempered by the views of the outsiders. The second reason that probably informs the first question is that, generally speaking, we all come to the knowledge of Christ and an alertness to our spirituality through other people. These people are the primary shapers of our view of Christ; the people that open our eyes to the fact that we are not all that we can see, we are spiritual beings.

The second question, which, I think, is second by design, is intended to hit home. It says: having being exposed to what others think I am and having been exposed to those who talk about me, those who point to me, who do you think I am. The question is: have you transcended over the views of others about me and formulated your own view about me. Whether your personal view of me ends up agreeing with the views of others, is not important, what is important is whether you passed the sign board and tested the direction, even if your testing the direction led you the correct destination. The man whose life is defined by the mantra ‘shoot! aim!’ responds and says that He is the Messiah, the Anointed One, the Son of the living God. Maybe I should stop here with the narration of the story and haste to what I glean from this passage of the story. I will endeavor not to go against the context of the story.

This makes me ask myself whether I stopped to park at the board that informs me of my destination or went past that to pursue my destination. Did I listen to those who wanted to tell me what my destination is or have I discovered for myself what my destination is and am I in pursuit of that destination. Was I happy to derive my water from the tap or am I going to the river, the ocean; the true source. The obvious challenge with deriving your water from the tap is that, the tap may malfunction, the tap may get blocked, the tap may require routine maintenance and not be able to give you water, the tap may be contaminated, it may cease to give out water. Because of faithfully delivering potable water, the tap looks like it is the true source of the water. But we know that even if the tap can faithfully deliver potable water indefinitely, it is not the source of the water, it is just the messenger, the prophet, it points to the source.

The common thing between John the Baptist, Elijah and Jeremiah is that they were all pointing to the coming Messiah; none of them was the Messiah. When it comes to spirituality, we sometimes get stuck by our awe of the Prophets who were supposed to point us to the source. We worship religion, we worship our churches, we worship our spiritual leaders (whatever you call them), we worship religious or church tradition and religious or church dogma. We worship our favourite authors etc.

Having pondered on the above conversations I find myself needing to carefully keep my loyalties in check. My loyalties cannot be allowed to keep me from pursuing my destiny and from my spiritual alertness. In my mind, my tap must never replace the source, must never block my way to the source of the water. I can’t be deceived by the reliability of the tap and forget that it is not the source. My life purpose must be to find my truth and live in it. I can’t be happy to believe in a reincarnated Prophet, its great to come into contact with a reincarnated Prophet. But, in the light of the Promised One, the Anointed One, the reincarnated Prophets pale into insignificance.

Pursue your truth, your objective truth; and when you find it, live it.

What do you see in the mirror when you look at you

2011-05-24T17:38:00.000+02:00

Scanning through facebook I stumbled across an interesting discussion on the wall of a friend I hold in high regard. You know, the kind of people you keep around you and who make you look good because of their public profile. This was in the height of the political campaigning for local government elections. This friend read an article in a national newspaper that stated that one of the politicians, hot on the campaign trail, needed to sanitise her hands from time to time. According to that article, the reason this politician, who happened to be lighter in complexion, needed to sanitise her hands was to avoid getting an infection as she is on the campaign trail, apparently the infection would come from the black people whose votes she was trying hard to garner.

Black people came out guns blazing, no blows barred, hurling insults liberally and only not stating the insults that the mind could not recollect. I read this and my heart sank. There was such unison of disgust at this politician that I thought if I expressed my view, the revulsion would be deflected from the politician to yours truly. I deliberately mention that this was during a contested election as I think and or hope that part of the ire was caused by the season and, not necessarily, reason.

My Random Thoughts started to ponder on this matter and they took me to a story in the bible when spies were sent to Jericho to spy the land and report on what they saw.

Now picture this: you have this large crowd of vagabonds of all ages going around seemingly aimlessly in the wilderness. These guys were slaves where they come from, they were treated as beasts of labour for all their lives. When they came out of that situation, they are vagabonding in the wilderness for many years, so many years that very few of the people who left slavery were alive when they reached the ‘promised land’, but legacy is a strange thing [I hope we will talk about legacy one day]. Briefly, a slave bequeaths a slavery mindset to their forebears. Though the majority of the people who were slaves were no longer alive, it seems that the slavery time of the mind was still alive and thriving among these vagabonds.

Part of the mandate of the spies was to check whether the people that lived in the ‘promised land’ were strong or weak. On this chapter of the report, the spies reported that the inhabitants of Jericho are very strong ‘we looked like grasshoppers and that is how they saw us’. The report was, these guys could crush us as easy as we crush grasshoppers, I cannot imagine how big a person should be for me to see myself as a grasshopper. I guess for me to feel like that someone will have to be at least five storeys high. I have not met a person this big and I don’t think they met people that are that big.

The interesting thing about this is that it tells you what time's their mind. I thought the anger of the guys on facebook was more about how they saw themselves. Why should I think that a person’s hand sanitiser has something to do with me and ‘my people’? Why should I not think that it is a hygiene choice that she has made and has very little to do with me as an individual and ‘my people’ as a group? Why should I conclude that it means that she thinks that she will get germs from me? I wondered if any of the members of the mob used a hand sanitiser. I imagine that if that’s how they felt about it, they probably don’t have it and probably don’t use it in public. Just to test my thoughts, I spoke to a friend who uses a hand sanitiser and she did not see anything untoward with this politician using the hand sanitiser. Come to think of it, I have seen people using a hand sanitiser, I never thought that it had anything to do with me. According to these bright minds, the politician should have procured the hand sanitiser as one of the essentials of the campaign trail.

I may be wrong to think that the ladies and gentlemen who saw the hand sanitiser as abhorrent were seeing themselves as inferior in relation to the white politician. I am convinced that the most accurate mindset calculator is how you think others see you; especially when your reasons for thinking that are not backed by any evidence. I cannot imagine someone who does not have issues of an esteem thinking that others look down on him or her without good reason.

There is no record of the people of Jericho telling the spies that the spies looked like grasshoppers to them. In fact the record of the bible is consistent with an interpretation that the spies saw themselves like grasshoppers in relation to the inhabitants of Jericho and, based on that, they were of the view that the inhabitants of Jericho saw them in this way. This is when the way you see yourself is so entrenched in you that you are convinced that others see you the way you think they see you, which in this case, is worsened by the fact that it is not favourable.

The real point is: why should you be concerned about how others see you. If a person’s actions cease to be their actions and start to be informed by you (that is, how they see you) then, I think that you need to have a good look at yourself and accept that there may be a problem with what you see in the mirror when you look at yourself.

All philosophers agree that you should not see yourself less or more than you ought to. I want to think that it is necessary to add to this that you should see people’s actions as people’s actions and not as an indication of how they see you. Many times, people do not even notice the things that you think that they notice about you. If you really have to know how others view you, the best way is to ask them in an environment where you are convinced they will be honest, otherwise, it’s a waste of time.

What do you see in the mirror when you look at yourself.

The Price of Heroes

2011-03-27T18:46:00.000+02:00

The year is 2018. It’s the dying moments of the Soccer World Cup finals. In the finals of this Competition, South Africa is pitted against Argentina, the winners of the previous Soccer World Cup in Brazil. All the hopes of South Africa seem hung on a young man barely 18 years old with lighting pace, an unparalleled dribbling wizard with the striking power of a tornado. The ageing Itumeleng Khune makes a crucial save, probably his last acrobatic save in international competition. As he is reputed to do; Khune spots the young Sisa who has positioned himself opportunistically and is under the watchful eye of a seasoned central defender and a pacy left back. Khune sends the ball to the old soccer soul, the very young man, Sisa. Sisa’s first touch is the stuff great digitized adverts are made of. It is as if he is contemplating his first move; he pauses momentarily drawing the pacy left back to him. This is exactly what Sisa wanted. As he slices past the pacy left back, the Argentinian goalkeeper, the most economic in this competition, starts to position himself in such a way that he will cover his post.

Sisa stops and starts running again like he never stopped and just happens to see a good space between the bulky seasoned central defender and the goal keeper. His greatest enemy is time. It’s as if he’s aiming for the basket ball’s buzzer beater. The referee from Tokyo has looked at his watch twice now. If he misses this shot, this match is over and Argentina wins this competition on penalties because the ageing Khune is now a shadow of the penalty stopper that he used to be. Sisa lets loose one of his signature bullets which appears to change direction twice.

It’s a goal!!!!

Sisa, having spotted a big television camera, races straight to it, raising his shirt to reveal an inscription in his inner white shirt with the words “for me dad!”. The stadium in Qatar is ablaze with excitement. Even some of the opposition fans are confused. They don’t know whether to celebrate the brilliance of this young man on the verge of joining greats like Pele and Maradona or to lament the loss of this important competition.

Now take a deep breath. Stop!

To the 4 billion soccer lovers strewn in the towns, villages, cities, capitals and crevices of the world, the message on Sisa’s inner white T-Shirt is a celebration of the positive contribution that his father made to his career. But is it? Does it not mean “Dad, you tried to bring my dreams to nought and I managed through all your negativity and your refusal to recognise and support my talent, I made it. Eat that!”.

I wanted to write a piece that contends that the price that we pay for heroes like Nelson Mandela, Oliver Tambo, Martin Luther King Jnr and many others causes me not to be able to celebrate these luminaries fully. I wanted to say that this price is just too much and that, as a result of that price, I'm sometimes very reluctant to celebrate these leading lights. Then I thought you’d refuse to continue reading, so I used Sisa to make my point. Poor guy will read this one day and … I don’t know what he’ll think or do.

The observation is that for South Africa to produce the quality of a person and leader that OR Tambo and Nelson Mandela are, how much damage was done to how many people? Are these leaders in a position to undo this damage? Adversity has produced these leaders. However, have we stopped and thought about the damage and devastation that has been suffered by hordes of people. Do we sit and count the cost: the broken lives, the broken families, losses of life and limb and sanity, broken dreams, lived apprehensions. In my beloved country, 16 years after the dawn of democracy and a government led by the organisation that fought for the freedom of the masses, there are still those who, for good reason, I might add, still blame apartheid for some of the ills in society.

The hardship that birthed luminaries like Madiba lingered much longer ever after those hardship were removed from the law books.

I’m certain you understand that I just had to watch The Karate Kid, the block buster movie starring Jadan Smith and Jackie Chan. I did not watch it to see the beautiful landscape of China that is shown there, nor the beautiful choreography that Jackie Chan is reputed to consistently produce. I went there to see the power of legacy, the power of positive re-enforcement.

Because people are generally more tenacious than we care to admit, reinforcement can either be positive or negative. The manuscript inscription on Sisa’s T-shirt may be a message of gratitude to his loving father who supported his dreams and believed in his dreams. A father who took the time to encourage, to play along, to coach, to be the driver that shuttled the young boy from one match to the other and one practice session to another. A father who encouraged him not to grow a big head when the accolades started flowing in, teaching him how to address the members of the media and teaching him all that the father knew.

Without trashing the young Jadan, there is no telling whether this talented young man would be the one that is picked to act in this position if open auditions were conducted. He most probably would not have been the choice for the part, but because of his surname, he happened to have auditioned against himself, he beat himself in the auditions and won. This is all that I wish to build for my kids: I would like them not to struggle with the things that I struggled with. Those that I may be in a position to help must not struggle with what I struggled with in all areas of their lives. If, somehow, I can set them up to be successful, I have to do that. This does not mean spoiling them and serving their destiny to them in a silver platter, it means teaching them, training them through positive influence and positive reinforcement to make them reach all that they are meant to reach and become.

Can we produce heroes less expensively? Can we produce leaders who are well grounded and well rounded? The difficulty with some of the people who are leaders and had to go through hardship to get there is that there is wheat and weed in their fabric and the weed in their lives continually chokes the life out of the wheat and there is therefore this constant internal war between the wheat and the weed and the leader is compromised.

Is it not true that we celebrate Nelson Mandela because hordes of people were taken through fire, he emerged badly burnt, he worked with many to put out the fire (some putting out the fire with their own lives), he emerged alive. After the fire was put out and he stated that he had forgiven the incinerator. Unfortunately in this scrabble for survival many were charred, many were maimed, many were treated as less than animals and behaved worse than animals. Is this really not the fine print, the hidden cost of what the nation of South Africa has suffered. Is this the only way to ‘discover’ the stature of a Nelson Mandela? Could we not have groomed the man to that stature less costly?

For the sake of the Smiths, I hope that Jadan is keenly interested in the entertainment industry and will use the fact that he co-starred in big movies like The Karate Kid and The Pursuit of Happyness as a spring board to reach heights that his parents have not reached in their careers.

Let’s find a way to produce heroes less expensively.

Mirror, Mirror on the Wall

2011-03-12T22:54:00.002+02:00

It is very interesting that I find it so easy to be in the middle of a conversation criticizing someone. I don’t know if you have experienced that nice feeling that you get when you are sitting with someone else or other people and cutting another person to size, laughing at their folly and just having a great time. You wish it won’t stop, it’s as if the more faults you find of the other person, the better you feel about your own faults.

It may be a political leader, a spiritual leader, a neighbour, a brother, a sister, your mother, your father, it does not matter who it is; one of the most enjoyable things to do is to find the fault of another and talk about, puff it up a bit, flower it up a bit for good measure, make it sound a little bit more interesting. In this beautiful game of discussing and magnifying another’s faults nothing beats an audience of the willing and an audience of those who will contribute to the slaughter when your own well of filth is running dry.

This other day I found myself in that position again and we were having a ball bringing up the filth and stench of some person, I can’t even remember who it was. You will understand just now what may have wiped my memory. After the talk and the satisfaction brought by this, I started replaying all the things that we were saying about the poor woman or the poor man. Getting a bit excited about some of the juicy details that I had left out initially. To my utter disgust, two thoughts dropped in my head:

· I started seeing some parallels between me and the person we was cutting down to size (ouch!); then as soon as I started saying: “Ah but I’m not like that”; the obstinate thought did not budge and immediately popped a second unwelcome thought;

· If you were half as critical of you as you are of the other person, you would be a much better person, most probably the President of France.

As soon as I started to think who I could blame for these two thoughts that forced themselves into my mind, it was like that obstinate thing that birthed the thoughts comes back to say “my point exactly”.

Nowadays, I find that it is becoming increasingly difficult for me to start tearing someone down. I find myself looking internally at me to start tearing myself down and take positive steps to undo the things in my life that need attention. I have found that humility is in the ability to see that all human beings, including me, have frailties and if I see another’s frailties, I should not haste to speak about that person’s frailties, I should look at mine and pursue making improvements on me. I find that it is becoming easier for me understand the conduct of others and not only see it as foolishness.

This is probably something that you don’t want to read. I also don’t want to write it. I write it merely to allow you to know about it so that I have less and less people to tear other people down with.

I have read from the wisdom of Jack Canfield that that inner critic must be turned into an inner coach. As I’m training to become better at not speaking badly about other people, I am training my inner critic to become my inner coach: to tell me exactly what it would have me do without it cutting me to size.

Friends, a large part of personal improvement is the ability to do less of coaching others and master coaching yourself. Mirror, mirror on the wall, tell me who’s the fairest of them all. Let us not ask of our mirrors to declare ourselves the fairest of them all and use our mirrors to be the best that we can be.

The Fringe Benefits of Failure, and the Importance of Imagination

2011-03-09T12:50:00.000+02:00

A friend shared this article with me and I could not help but share it with you. It's a tad longer than what you usually read in these pages, but I'm certain you will not feel the length. Read and Be inspired!

J.K. Rowling, author of the best-selling Harry Potter book series, delivers her Commencement Address, “The Fringe Benefits of Failure, and the Importance of Imagination,” at the Annual Meeting of the Harvard Alumni Association.

President Faust, members of the Harvard Corporation and the Board of Overseers, members of the faculty, proud parents, and, above all, graduates.
The first thing I would like to say is ‘thank you.’ Not only has Harvard given me an extraordinary honour, but the weeks of fear and nausea I have endured at the thought of giving this commencement address have made me lose weight. A win-win situation! Now all I have to do is take deep breaths, squint at the red banners and convince myself that I am at the world’s largest Gryffindor reunion.

Delivering a commencement address is a great responsibility; or so I thought until I cast my mind back to my own graduation. The commencement speaker that day was the distinguished British philosopher Baroness Mary Warnock. Reflecting on her speech has helped me enormously in writing this one, because it turns out that I can’t remember a single word she said. This liberating discovery enables me to proceed without any fear that I might inadvertently influence you to abandon promising careers in business, the law or politics for the giddy delights of becoming a gay wizard.

You see? If all you remember in years to come is the ‘gay wizard’ joke, I’ve come out ahead of Baroness Mary Warnock. Achievable goals: the first step to self improvement.

Actually, I have wracked my mind and heart for what I ought to say to you today. I have asked myself what I wish I had known at my own graduation, and what important lessons I have learned in the 21 years that have expired between that day and this.

I have come up with two answers. On this wonderful day when we are gathered together to celebrate your academic success, I have decided to talk to you about the benefits of failure. And as you stand on the threshold of what is sometimes called ‘real life’, I want to extol the crucial importance of imagination.
These may seem quixotic or paradoxical choices, but please bear with me.
Looking back at the 21-year-old that I was at graduation, is a slightly uncomfortable experience for the 42-year-old that she has become. Half my lifetime ago, I was striking an uneasy balance between the ambition I had for myself, and what those closest to me expected of me.

I was convinced that the only thing I wanted to do, ever, was to write novels. However, my parents, both of whom came from impoverished backgrounds and neither of whom had been to college, took the view that my overactive imagination was an amusing personal quirk that would never pay a mortgage, or secure a pension. I know that the irony strikes with the force of a cartoon anvil, now.
So they hoped that I would take a vocational degree; I wanted to study English Literature. A compromise was reached that in retrospect satisfied nobody, and I went up to study Modern Languages. Hardly had my parents’ car rounded the corner at the end of the road than I ditched German and scuttled off down the Classics corridor.

I cannot remember telling my parents that I was studying Classics; they might well have found out for the first time on graduation day. Of all the subjects on this planet, I think they would have been hard put to name one less useful than Greek mythology when it came to securing the keys to an executive bathroom.
I would like to make it clear, in parenthesis, that I do not blame my parents for their point of view. There is an expiry date on blaming your parents for steering you in the wrong direction; the moment you are old enough to take the wheel, responsibility lies with you. What is more, I cannot criticise my parents for hoping that I would never experience poverty. They had been poor themselves, and I have since been poor, and I quite agree with them that it is not an ennobling experience. Poverty entails fear, and stress, and sometimes depression; it means a thousand petty humiliations and hardships. Climbing out of poverty by your own efforts, that is indeed something on which to pride yourself, but poverty itself is romanticised only by fools.

What I feared most for myself at your age was not poverty, but failure.
At your age, in spite of a distinct lack of motivation at university, where I had spent far too long in the coffee bar writing stories, and far too little time at lectures, I had a knack for passing examinations, and that, for years, had been the measure of success in my life and that of my peers.
I am not dull enough to suppose that because you are young, gifted and well-educated, you have never known hardship or heartbreak. Talent and intelligence never yet inoculated anyone against the caprice of the Fates, and I do not for a moment suppose that everyone here has enjoyed an existence of unruffled privilege and contentment.

However, the fact that you are graduating from Harvard suggests that you are not very well-acquainted with failure. You might be driven by a fear of failure quite as much as a desire for success. Indeed, your conception of failure might not be too far from the average person’s idea of success, so high have you already flown.
Ultimately, we all have to decide for ourselves what constitutes failure, but the world is quite eager to give you a set of criteria if you let it. So I think it fair to say that by any conventional measure, a mere seven years after my graduation day, I had failed on an epic scale. An exceptionally short-lived marriage had imploded, and I was jobless, a lone parent, and as poor as it is possible to be in modern Britain, without being homeless. The fears that my parents had had for me, and that I had had for myself, had both come to pass, and by every usual standard, I was the biggest failure I knew.

Now, I am not going to stand here and tell you that failure is fun. That period of my life was a dark one, and I had no idea that there was going to be what the press has since represented as a kind of fairy tale resolution. I had no idea then how far the tunnel extended, and for a long time, any light at the end of it was a hope rather than a reality.

So why do I talk about the benefits of failure? Simply because failure meant a stripping away of the inessential. I stopped pretending to myself that I was anything other than what I was, and began to direct all my energy into finishing the only work that mattered to me. Had I really succeeded at anything else, I might never have found the determination to succeed in the one arena I believed I truly belonged. I was set free, because my greatest fear had been realised, and I was still alive, and I still had a daughter whom I adored, and I had an old typewriter and a big idea. And so rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life.

You might never fail on the scale I did, but some failure in life is inevitable. It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all – in which case, you fail by default.
Failure gave me an inner security that I had never attained by passing examinations. Failure taught me things about myself that I could have learned no other way. I discovered that I had a strong will, and more discipline than I had suspected; I also found out that I had friends whose value was truly above the price of rubies.

The knowledge that you have emerged wiser and stronger from setbacks means that you are, ever after, secure in your ability to survive. You will never truly know yourself, or the strength of your relationships, until both have been tested by adversity. Such knowledge is a true gift, for all that it is painfully won, and it has been worth more than any qualification I ever earned.

So given a Time Turner, I would tell my 21-year-old self that personal happiness lies in knowing that life is not a check-list of acquisition or achievement. Your qualifications, your CV, are not your life, though you will meet many people of my age and older who confuse the two. Life is difficult, and complicated, and beyond anyone’s total control, and the humility to know that will enable you to survive its vicissitudes.

Now you might think that I chose my second theme, the importance of imagination, because of the part it played in rebuilding my life, but that is not wholly so. Though I personally will defend the value of bedtime stories to my last gasp, I have learned to value imagination in a much broader sense. Imagination is not only the uniquely human capacity to envision that which is not, and therefore the fount of all invention and innovation. In its arguably most transformative and revelatory capacity, it is the power that enables us to empathise with humans whose experiences we have never shared.

One of the greatest formative experiences of my life preceded Harry Potter, though it informed much of what I subsequently wrote in those books. This revelation came in the form of one of my earliest day jobs. Though I was sloping off to write stories during my lunch hours, I paid the rent in my early 20s by working at the African research department at Amnesty International’s headquarters in London.

There in my little office I read hastily scribbled letters smuggled out of totalitarian regimes by men and women who were risking imprisonment to inform the outside world of what was happening to them. I saw photographs of those who had disappeared without trace, sent to Amnesty by their desperate families and friends. I read the testimony of torture victims and saw pictures of their injuries. I opened handwritten, eye-witness accounts of summary trials and executions, of kidnappings and rapes.

Many of my co-workers were ex-political prisoners, people who had been displaced from their homes, or fled into exile, because they had the temerity to speak against their governments. Visitors to our offices included those who had come to give information, or to try and find out what had happened to those they had left behind.

I shall never forget the African torture victim, a young man no older than I was at the time, who had become mentally ill after all he had endured in his homeland. He trembled uncontrollably as he spoke into a video camera about the brutality inflicted upon him. He was a foot taller than I was, and seemed as fragile as a child. I was given the job of escorting him back to the Underground Station afterwards, and this man whose life had been shattered by cruelty took my hand with exquisite courtesy, and wished me future happiness.

And as long as I live I shall remember walking along an empty corridor and suddenly hearing, from behind a closed door, a scream of pain and horror such as I have never heard since. The door opened, and the researcher poked out her head and told me to run and make a hot drink for the young man sitting with her. She had just had to give him the news that in retaliation for his own outspokenness against his country’s regime, his mother had been seized and executed.
Every day of my working week in my early 20s I was reminded how incredibly fortunate I was, to live in a country with a democratically elected government, where legal representation and a public trial were the rights of everyone.
Every day, I saw more evidence about the evils humankind will inflict on their fellow humans, to gain or maintain power. I began to have nightmares, literal nightmares, about some of the things I saw, heard, and read.

And yet I also learned more about human goodness at Amnesty International than I had ever known before.

Amnesty mobilises thousands of people who have never been tortured or imprisoned for their beliefs to act on behalf of those who have. The power of human empathy, leading to collective action, saves lives, and frees prisoners. Ordinary people, whose personal well-being and security are assured, join together in huge numbers to save people they do not know, and will never meet. My small participation in that process was one of the most humbling and inspiring experiences of my life.

Unlike any other creature on this planet, humans can learn and understand, without having experienced. They can think themselves into other people’s places.
Of course, this is a power, like my brand of fictional magic, that is morally neutral. One might use such an ability to manipulate, or control, just as much as to understand or sympathise.

And many prefer not to exercise their imaginations at all. They choose to remain comfortably within the bounds of their own experience, never troubling to wonder how it would feel to have been born other than they are. They can refuse to hear screams or to peer inside cages; they can close their minds and hearts to any suffering that does not touch them personally; they can refuse to know.
I might be tempted to envy people who can live that way, except that I do not think they have any fewer nightmares than I do. Choosing to live in narrow spaces leads to a form of mental agoraphobia, and that brings its own terrors. I think the wilfully unimaginative see more monsters. They are often more afraid.
What is more, those who choose not to empathise enable real monsters. For without ever committing an act of outright evil ourselves, we collude with it, through our own apathy.

One of the many things I learned at the end of that Classics corridor down which I ventured at the age of 18, in search of something I could not then define, was this, written by the Greek author Plutarch: What we achieve inwardly will change outer reality.

That is an astonishing statement and yet proven a thousand times every day of our lives. It expresses, in part, our inescapable connection with the outside world, the fact that we touch other people’s lives simply by existing.
But how much more are you, Harvard graduates of 2008, likely to touch other people’s lives? Your intelligence, your capacity for hard work, the education you have earned and received, give you unique status, and unique responsibilities. Even your nationality sets you apart. The great majority of you belong to the world’s only remaining superpower. The way you vote, the way you live, the way you protest, the pressure you bring to bear on your government, has an impact way beyond your borders. That is your privilege, and your burden.
If you choose to use your status and influence to raise your voice on behalf of those who have no voice; if you choose to identify not only with the powerful, but with the powerless; if you retain the ability to imagine yourself into the lives of those who do not have your advantages, then it will not only be your proud families who celebrate your existence, but thousands and millions of people whose reality you have helped change. We do not need magic to change the world, we carry all the power we need inside ourselves already: we have the power to imagine better.

I am nearly finished. I have one last hope for you, which is something that I already had at 21. The friends with whom I sat on graduation day have been my friends for life. They are my children’s godparents, the people to whom I’ve been able to turn in times of trouble, people who have been kind enough not to sue me when I took their names for Death Eaters. At our graduation we were bound by enormous affection, by our shared experience of a time that could never come again, and, of course, by the knowledge that we held certain photographic evidence that would be exceptionally valuable if any of us ran for Prime Minister.
So today, I wish you nothing better than similar friendships. And tomorrow, I hope that even if you remember not a single word of mine, you remember those of Seneca, another of those old Romans I met when I fled down the Classics corridor, in retreat from career ladders, in search of ancient wisdom:
As is a tale, so is life: not how long it is, but how good it is, is what matters.

I wish you all very good lives. Thank you very much.

http://harvardmagazine.com/commencement/the-fringe-benefits-failure-the-importance-imagination

Empowerment for Legacy

2011-02-09T18:26:00.000+02:00

At the outset, I must say that, like you, I find that some of the stories in the bible do not lend themselves to ready believability. You actually need faith to believe some of them. Let me write about the one that I think requires a lot of faith:

This is the story of the Jesus feeding four thousand or five thousand men, depending on which account you read. Jesus says that he feels sorry for these people who have been with him for three days and asks if there is any food. When I read some of the stories I try and be there in person to try and go through the situation with those that were there. I’m always tempted to be Jesus in the Jesus stories, but I think that’s a hard ask so I refrain from that.

On to the story. You are one of the disciples and you realise that these people have been here for three days and you are itching for them to be sent home because you are also very tired. Finally the meeting you’ve been waiting for comes, Jesus calls you around and says, you know I’m feeling bad about the fact that these people have been here for three days. I would think “…and the penny drops”. But as soon as you think this, you hear the words, I don’t want to send them home because they are too tired and hungry, they will faint on the way. As you stumble for a fitting response to this new height of preposterousness, you are confronted with the question, how much bread do you have. At this point, I would be starting to walk away from this man who does not have an inkling of the ramifications of the predicament that is being faced here, a predicament of His own making, by the way.

Someone actually gives an answer that, in my mind, is as hollow as the question. We have seven pieces of bread and a few pieces of little fish. Like you, I have heard numerous sermons on this story. What I have regarded as an absolutely superfluous enquiry is an attempt to state the size of the bread and the size of the pieces of fish. What difference does it make?

A young lad was accosted by the disciples and his lunch was taken from him. Just as you get some sigh because you think that Jesus will understand that these people must, at least, start making their way home, He commands the people to sit down. Now I want to run away and go back to fishing or whatever else I was doing before meeting this man.

What follows is why I chose to pen these thoughts. What follows are what I view as two miracles. These miracles clearly show the measure of the man, the measure of a leader, a hard act to follow.

The first miracle is that Jesus starts distributing the food to the disciples and the food does not run out from his hands. This is a miracle, taking a young boy’s lunch and distributing it to twelve people and giving them so much that, they also can start distributing.

The second miracle is that the disciples then give the crowd the food and the food does not run out. Jesus gave the disciples something that was capable of doing exactly what it did when it was in his hands. There is no record of the disciples going back and forth to Jesus to get more food from him. Any person who has catered to about ten people will know that you always have to go back to the kitchen to get more food. I am aware that the people that contributed to the compilation that we call the bible, did not know that we would do what we’ve done with their writings. They simply wrote the account that they saw, which may not have been as detailed as one would write if they knew that the book they are contributing to would be used the world over. Having accepted that, I can only operate from the fact that there is no record of a back and forth ‘to the kitchen’ that was Jesus, I assume that what is consistent with the kind of leader that Jesus was is Him empowering His disciples for legacy.

If I was Jesus, I would insist on the disciples coming back to me for more, so that the praise comes back to me. But Jesus was a selfless leader; he had this interesting notion that unless a seed dies, it stays alone [I think I must write about that at some point]. We know that every seed, however small, has a potential to birth a forest. The observation that Jesus brings, speaking about His own life is that for a seed to reach its potential of birthing a forest, it must first die. Although this is a daily occurrence in the fields, the organized and the unorganized, the precondition of dying suggests that the seed will not reach its potential, yet this is the only thoroughfare for the seed to reach its potential. Like my big brother would say: “What a leader!”

This is a leader who, like all the greatest leaders the world over, believed that for him to leave a legacy, he must empower his followers with legacy in mind. He must forget about Himself and about the follower who will take the baton. His focus must be on the race, the legacy. His mission and vision was more about the mission and the vision and less about Him. He is not the leader that wants to take everything away from his followers or enjoy having his followers remaining followers for as long as humanly possible, demanding to make decisions on all areas of the followers’ life, big and mundane.

The fish and the bread that did not run out in his hand did not run out in the hands of the disciples. He gave what was enough for the 12 disciples to carry. But gave the twelve what was enough to feed the 12 thousand people that were there and have an excess that filled seven baskets. Now one day if I become a leader, I would like to be that leader that is more concerned about the vision than I am about my name. That those that I lead may be empowered without my trying to limit empowerment so that their contribution to the vision can be limited. Jesus’ style was to give his followers enough to make a contribution that is even greater than the contribution that he made to the vision.

As soon as you know that what you wish to achieve is greater than you, you know that those that are your partners in achieving that can have the capacity to make a contribution that is greater than yours in the work. It is only those of us that are self absorbed that will believe that we are the be all and end all of the work that has been given to us. I hope we can learn to always have legacy in mind.

When you have found Gideon, ensure to empower that Gideon for Legacy that is bigger than both you and Gideon combined.

Nick Vujicic

2011-01-28T11:18:00.000+02:00

Steve Jobs' 2005 Stanford Commencement Address

2011-01-20T15:12:00.000+02:00

Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish

2011-01-20T13:14:00.003+02:00

This is the text of the Commencement address by Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Computer and of Pixar Animation Studios, delivered on June 12, 2005 to students at Stanford University, I think it is beautiful and thought I must share it with you.

Read and be inspired:

I am honored to be with you today at your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. I never graduated from college. Truth be told, this is the closest I’ve ever gotten to a college graduation. Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That’s it. No big deal. Just three stories.

The first story is about connecting the dots.

I dropped out of Reed College after the first 6 months, but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out?

It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed college graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife. Except that when I popped out they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl. So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking: “We have an unexpected baby boy; do you want him?” They said: “Of course.” My biological mother later found out that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would someday go to college.

And 17 years later I did go to college. But I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents’ savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six months, I couldn’t see the value in it. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out. And here I was spending all of the money my parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK. It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back it was one of the best decisions I ever made. The minute I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didn’t interest me, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked interesting.

It wasn’t all romantic. I didn’t have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends’ rooms, I returned coke bottles for the 5¢ deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the 7 miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it. And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on. Let me give you one example:

Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn’t have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and san serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can’t capture, and I found it fascinating.

None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, its likely that no personal computer would have them. If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later.

Again, you can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.

My second story is about love and loss.

I was lucky — I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents garage when I was 20. We worked hard, and in 10 years Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4000 employees. We had just released our finest creation — the Macintosh — a year earlier, and I had just turned 30. And then I got fired. How can you get fired from a company you started? Well, as Apple grew we hired someone who I thought was very talented to run the company with me, and for the first year or so things went well. But then our visions of the future began to diverge and eventually we had a falling out. When we did, our Board of Directors sided with him. So at 30 I was out. And very publicly out. What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating.

I really didn’t know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down – that I had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me. I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to apologize for screwing up so badly. I was a very public failure, and I even thought about running away from the valley. But something slowly began to dawn on me — I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit. I had been rejected, but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over.

I didn’t see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.

During the next five years, I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar, and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar went on to create the worlds first computer animated feature film, Toy Story, and is now the most successful animation studio in the world. In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT, I returned to Apple, and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple’s current renaissance. And Laurene and I have a wonderful family together.

I’m pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn’t been fired from Apple. It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don’t lose faith. I’m convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You’ve got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don’t settle.

My third story is about death.

When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: “If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you’ll most certainly be right.” It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: “If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?” And whenever the answer has been “No” for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.

Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure – these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

About a year ago I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning, and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas. I didn’t even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months. My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctor’s code for prepare to die. It means to try to tell your kids everything you thought you’d have the next 10 years to tell them in just a few months. It means to make sure everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes.

I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening I had a biopsy, where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach and into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor. I was sedated, but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope the doctors started crying because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery. I had the surgery and I’m fine now.

This was the closest I’ve been to facing death, and I hope its the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept:

No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.

Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late 1960′s, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and polaroid cameras. It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions.

Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth Catalog, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words: “Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.” It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.

Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

Thank you all very much."